Technical Design Portfolio

This Course was developed under a grant from the Australian Government Department of the Environment and Water Resources as part of the 2005/06 Environmental Education Grants Program. (The views expressed herein are not necessarily the views of the Commonwealth, and the Commonwealth does not accept the responsibility for any information or advice contained herein.)

Unit 1
A Whole System Approach to Sustainable Design
Educational Aim:
The first unit of the suite explains the importance and relevance of a Whole System Approach to Sustainable Design in addressing the pressing environmental challenges of the 21st Century. It introduces the main concepts of a Whole System Approach to Sustainable Design and how it complements ‘design for environment’ and ‘design for sustainability’ strategies. This opening unit introduces the need to innovate efficient holistic solutions to reduce our negative impact on the environment and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. The unit then outlines the numerous benefits that Whole System Design brings to business and the nation. These include how Whole System Design can help to achieve sustainable development enabling the decoupling of economic growth from environmental pressure. The unit then concludes with a summary of the main concepts of whole system design to deliver such solutions. In these units the terms ‘Whole System Design’, a ‘Whole System Approach to Sustainable Design’, a ‘Whole System Approach to Design’ and ‘Sustainable Design’ are used interchangeably to mean the same thing. This is done deliberately to emphasise that these units

2. Department of Environment and Heritage (2001) Product Innovation: the Green
Advantage: an Introduction to Design for Environment for Australian Business (www.deh.gov.au/industry/finance/publications/producer.html)

Why does Design Matter?
As Paul Hawken et al wrote in Natural Capitalism,1 By the time the design for most human artefacts is completed but before they have actually been built, about 80–90 percent of their life-cycle economic and ecological costs have already been made inevitable. In a typical building, efficiency expert Joseph Romm explains, ‘although up-front building and design costs may represent only a fraction of the building's life-cycle costs, when just 1 percent of a project's up-front costs are spent, up to 70 percent of its life-cycle costs may already be committed. When 7 percent of project costs are spent, up to 85 percent of life-cycle costs have been committed’. That first one percent is critical because, as the design adage has it, ‘all the really important mistakes are made on the first day’. Designs for infrastructure, buildings, cars and appliances all have long design lives in most cases from 20 to 50 years. The size and duration of infrastructure and building developments, for instance, demand that they should now be much more critically evaluated for efficiency and function than ever before. Former Minister for Environment, Senator Robert Hill, when talking about the new Australian Parliament House, sums up the loss of opportunities from a lack of incorporating environmental considerations into design, 2 Across Lake Burley Griffin is one of Australia's most famous houses - Parliament House. Built at considerable cost to the Australian taxpayer, it was officially opened in 1988. Since 1989, efforts have been made to reduce energy consumption in Parliament House, resulting in a 41 per cent reduction in energy use with the flow-on effect of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by more than 20,000 tonnes annually. This has also brought about a saving of more than $2 million a year in running costs. But the new wave of environmental thinking would have us question why these measures weren't incorporated in the design of the building in the first place and what other opportunities for energy saving design features were missed? It's a simple example of how the environment is still considered an add-on option as opposed to being central to the way we do business. Currently considerable opportunities are being missed at the design phase of projects to significantly reduce negative environmental impacts. There is a great deal of opportunity here for business and government to reduce process costs, and achieve greater competitive advantage through sustainable engineering designs. As Senator Robert Hill also stated,3 Building construction and motor vehicles are two high profile industry sectors where producers are utilising Design for Environment (DfE) principles in their product development processes, thereby strategically reducing the environmental impact of a product or service over its entire life cycle, from manufacture to disposal. Companies that are incorporating DfE are at the forefront of innovative business management in Australia. As the link between business success and environmental protection becomes clearer, visionary companies have the opportunity to improve business practices, to be more competitive in a global economy, and increase their longevity. The Department of Environment and Heritage has published an introduction to design for environment for Australian businesses, ‘Product Innovation: The Green Advantage’4, which
1 2

Hawken, P., Lovins, A.B. and Lovins, L.H. (1999) Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, Earthscan, London. An address to The International Society of Ecological Economists by the Federal Minister for the Environment and Heritage Senator the Hon Robert Hill Australian National University Canberra July 6, 2000. Available at www.deh.gov.au/minister/env/2000/sp6jul00.html 3 The Department of Environment and Heritage (2001) Product Innovation: The Green Advantage: An Introduction to Design for Environment for Australian Business (www.deh.gov.au/industry/finance/publications/producer.html) 4 Ibid.

highlights the benefits of pursuing a ‘Design for Environment’ approach. This is backed up by numerous studies. DfE provides a new way for business to cost effectively achieve greater efficiencies and competitiveness from product re-design. Harvard business school Professor Michael Porter, author of ‘The Competitive Advantage of Nations’, and Claas van der Linde highlight a range of ways that DfE at the early stages of development of a project can both reduce costs and help the environment in their 1995 paper ‘Green and Competitive’5. Some of businesses’ most significant costs are capital and inputs, such as construction materials, raw materials, energy, water and transportation. It is therefore in businesses’ best interest to minimise these costs, and hence the amount of raw materials and other inputs they need to create their product or provide their service. Business produces either useful products and services or waste, better described as unsaleable production because the company pays to produce it. How does it assist a business to have plant equipment and labour tied up in generating waste? Table 1.1 below lists the numerous ways companies can profitably reduce waste. Addressing such opportunities therefore gives businesses numerous options to reduce costs and create new product differentiation. Table 1.1: Design for Environment (DfE) and Business Competitive Advantage. Design for Environment can improve Processes and reduce Costs:
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Greater resource productivity of inputs, energy, water and raw materials to reduce costs. Material savings from better design. Increases in process yields and less downtime through designing-out waste and designing the plant and process to minimise maintenance and parts. Better design to ensure that by-products and waste can be converted into valuable products. Reduced material storage and handling costs through ‘just in time’ management. Improved OH&S. Improvements in the quality of product or service.

Source: Adapted from Porter, M. and van der Linde, C. (1995) p126 A ‘Design for Environment’ approach to reducing environmental impacts is one of the best approaches business and government can take to find win-win opportunities to both reduce costs and help the environment. The DfE approach is reminiscent of the ‘total quality movement’ in business in the 1980s where many were sceptical at the beginning that re-examining current business and engineering practices would make a difference. Many doubted that win-win opportunities could be found. Today it is assumed that such win-win opportunities exist if business takes a total quality approach. The Department of Environment and Water Resources publication, Product Innovation: The Green Advantage, showed that many companies are finding win-win ways to reduce costs and improve product differentiation through a DfE approach. Expanding on this concept companies and government programs are finding that if a
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whole system design approach is taken then the cost savings and environmental improvements can be in orders of Factor 4-10 (75%-90%).

Whole System Design Explained
In the past engineers have failed to see these large potential energy and resource savings because they have been encouraged to optimise parts of the system - be it a pumping system, a car, or a building. Engineers have been encouraged to find efficiency improvements in part of a plant, or a building, but rarely encouraged to seek to re-optimise the whole system. ‘Incremental product refinement’ has been traditionally undertaken by isolating one component of the technology and optimising the performance or efficiency of that one component. Though this method has its merits with the traditional form of manufacturing and management of engineering solutions, it prevents engineers from achieving significant energy and resource efficiency savings. Over the last twenty years engineers using a Whole System Approach to Design has enabled designers to achieve Factor 4 – 20 (75-95%) efficiency improvements, which in many cases has opened up new more cost effective ways to reduce our load on the environment. This is because in the past many engineered systems did not take into account the multiple benefits that can be achieved by considering the whole system.

Whole System Design is a process through which the inter-connections between subsystems and systems are actively considered, and solutions are sought that address multiple problems via one and the same solution.

For example, as Rocky Mountain Institute point out most energy-using technologies are designed in three ways that are intended to produce an optimised design but actually produce sub-optimal solutions:
1.

Components are optimised in isolation from other components (thus ‘pessimising’ the systems of which they are a part).

2. Optimisation typically considers single rather than multiple benefits. 3.

The optimal sequence of design steps is not usually considered.6

Hence the Whole System Approach is now recognised as an important approach to enable the achievement of Sustainable Design. To illustrate, consider the famous work of Interface Ltd engineer Jan Schilham while designing an industrial pumping system for a factory in Shanghai in 1997, as profiled in ‘Natural Capitalism’: ‘One of its industrial processes required 14 pumps. In optimising the design, the top Western specialist firm sized the pump motors to total 95 horsepower. But by applying methods learned from Singaporean efficiency expert Eng Lock Lee (and focusing on reducing waste in the form of friction),Jan Schilham cut the design's pumping power to only 7 horsepower — a 92 percent or 12-fold energy saving—while reducing its capital cost and improving its performance in every respect.’7 He did this in two simple ways. First, he revisited pipe width. The friction in pipes decreases rapidly (nearly to the fifth power) as the diameter increases. He found that the existing pipe arrangement wasn’t taking advantage of this mathematical relationship, and so he designed the system to use short, fat pipes instead of long,
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thin pipes. Second, he adjusted the system to minimize bends in pipes (to further reduce friction). This whole-of-system approach created a 12 fold reduction in the energy required to pump the fluids through the pipe system, resulting in the big reduction in motor size, and subsequent energy and cost savings. Why is this significant? As Amory Lovins writes, ‘Pumping is the biggest use of motors, and motors use 3/5 of all electricity, so saving one unit of friction in the pipe save 10 units of fuel. Because of the large amount of losses of electricity in its transmission from the power plant to the end use, saving one unit of energy in the pump/pipe system saves upwards of ten units of fuel at the power plant.’8 A Whole System Approach to Sustainable Design allows multiple benefits to be achieved in the design of air-handling equipment, clean-rooms, lighting, drivepower systems, chillers, insulation, heat-exchanging, and other technical systems, in a wide range of sizes, programs, and climates. Such designs commonly yield energy savings between 50-90%. However, only a tiny fraction of design professionals routinely apply a whole-system Sustainable Design approaches. Most design projects deal with only some elements of an energy/materials consuming system and do not take into account the whole system. This is the main reason why they fail to capture the full savings potential. A Whole System Approach to Sustainable Design is increasingly being seen as the key strategy to achieving cost effective ways to reduce negative environmental impacts. This was one of the main conclusions of the 5 year Australian Federal Government’s Energy Efficiency Best Practice (EEBP) program run by the Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources (DITR).9 The team involved found that through a whole-of-system approach they could achieve 30-60% energy efficiency gains across a wide range of industries from bakeries, to supermarkets, mining, breweries, wineries, and dairies to name a few. The program explicitly recommends as one of the key steps within companies, “The need for complex problems to be understood and explored from a ‘whole of system’ perspective.”10 The program considered a number of industry applications including motor systems that are used in almost every industry. The program found that electric motors are used to provide motive power for a vast range of end uses — with crushing, grinding, mixing, fans, pumps, material conveying, air compressors, and refrigeration compressors, together accounting for 81% of industrial motive power. The program pointed out that through a whole-of-system approach to optimising industrial motor driven applications, when coupled with best practice motor management, electricity savings of between 30-60% can be realised. For example, consider an electric motor driving a pump that circulates a liquid around an industrial site.11 This system comprises:

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An electric motor (sizing and efficiency rating), Motor controls (switching, speed or torque control) Motor drive system (belts, gearboxes etc), Pump, Pipework, and Demand for the fluid (or in many cases the heat or ‘coolth’ it carries).

The efficiencies of these elements interact in complex ways. However consider a simplistic situation where the overall efficiency of the motor is improved by 10% (by a combination of appropriate sizing and selection of a high efficiency model). But if every element in the chain is improved in efficiency by 10%, then the overall level of energy use is: 0.9 x 0.9 x 0.9 x 0.9 x 0.9 x 0.9 = 0.53. That is 47% savings are achieved. This is why taking the whole system approach to design is yielding over 50% improvements previously ignored in resource productivity, with corresponding reductions in negative environmental impacts. If the most efficient component is chosen for each part of a motor system (even if for the difference in efficiency is not significant for the individual components) the overall the efficiency of the whole system is ~7 times greater. (See Table 1.2)

Whole System Design – A Rediscovery of Good Victorian Engineering During the 20th Century, engineering became more and more specialised as scientific and technological knowledge increased exponentially. So much so that now in the 21 st Century engineers are no longer trained across fields of engineering as they were before and thus no longer keep up with the latest breakthroughs in every field. As a result, opportunities are often missed to optimise the whole system as the engineer only knows their field in detail and has little interaction with other designers on the project. A classic example of this is industrial pressurised filtration, which is responsible for over one third of all the energy used in filtration globally. For the last 80 years most had assumed that these industrial pressurised filters had been designed optimally. However closer inspection by Professors’ White, Bogar, Healy and Scales at the University of Melbourne revealed that they had infact not yet been optimised. The design had been developed 80 years ago by a mechanical engineer who had designed a system which, when given very concentrated suspensions to filter, simply pushed harder rather than adjusting the chemistry of the suspension to make it easier to push through as the research team from the University of Melbourne have now done. In this case the engineer did not have the training in chemistry, or to consult a chemist, to see possibilities to improve the design of the whole system. This clearly demonstrates the benefit of engineers working together across disciplines to examine and optimise engineering systems by pooling their collective knowledge. Most engineering firms have this capacity.
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Another factor in why components of the engineering project are optimised in isolation rather than part of a system is because today large engineering projects are highly complex. Hence the engineer managing the project inevitably has to break up the project into components which are then worked on by individual engineers and designers. Therefore, often when undertaking the components of such projects the individual engineer is not responsible for the whole project and has little choice but to focus on optimising smaller components of the system, and hence missing those opportunities achievable only through a whole system approach to design. But this can be avoided and significant time and money can be saved – if extra time is taken at the planning stage of the process to consider whole system design opportunities and unleash the creativity of the designers through multidisciplinary design processes such as design charrettes. Engineers thrive on challenges and the recently developed field of engineering called ‘Systems Engineering’ has evolved to address the need on complex engineering projects for an engineer to ensure that all the parts of the project relate and fit. A systems engineer needs use a whole system approach to design and communicate the opportunities effectively to the other engineers involved with developing components of an engineering project. Best practice in systems engineering still performs reductionist analyses of engineering challenges but without losing sight of how one component of the system interacts with and affects all other components of the system, and the system’s behaviour and characteristics as a whole. Now as engineers seek to collaborate across the different fields of engineering once more any whole systems approach to design approach involving multi-disciplinary engineering teams becomes a rediscovery of the rich heritage of ‘Victorian’ engineering. Engineering has a rich tradition of valuing and practicing a whole system approach to design and optimisation. The first industrial revolution as we know it today would not have been possible if engineer James Watt had not practiced a whole system approach to design optimisation to achieve major resource productivity gains on the steam engine in 1769. The first industrial revolution was only possible because of the significant improvement in the conversion efficiency of the steam engine13 achieved by James Watt.14 James Watt realised that the machine was extremely inefficient. Though the jet of water condensed the steam in the cylinder very quickly, it had the undesirable effect of cooling the cylinder down, resulting in premature condensation on the next stroke. In effect the cylinder had to perform two contradictory functions at once: it had to be boiling hot in order to prevent the steam from condensing too early but also be cold in order to condense the steam at just the right time. Watt re-designed the engine by adding a separate condenser, allowing him to keep one cylinder hot by jacketing it in water supplied by the boiler. This cylinder ensured that the water was turned into steam and then another condenser was kept at the right temperature to ensure the steam would condense at just the right time. The result was an immensely more powerful machine than the Newcomen ‘steam’ engine , the original steam engine. Watt’s initial successful whole system design was followed by further remarkable improvements of his own making. The most important of these was the sun-and-planet gearing system which translated the engine’s reciprocating motion into rotary motion. In simple terms, the new machine could be used to drive other machines. Watt alone had used a whole system optimisation of the design to turn a steam pump into a machine that had vastly improved resource productivity and applicability.

13 14

The steam engine was invented in 1710 to pump water out of coal mines. Christianson, G. (1999) Greenhouse: The 200 Year History of Global Warming, Walker & Company, New York.

The Need for Sustainable Whole System Design Whole System Design provides ways to both improve conversion efficiency, resource productivity and reduce costs. James Watt showed this over 200 years ago. But in the 21 st Century WSD needs to go further. We need to seek to be restorative of the planet rather than destructive, and thus Whole System Design needs to design for sustainability.15 We need a Whole System approach to Sustainable Design. In the context of the loss of natural capital and the loss of resilience of many of the world’s ecosystems, development must be redesigned to not simply harm the environment less but rather to truly be restorative of nature and ecosystems and society and communities. This involves the complete reversal of the negative impacts of existing patterns of land use and development, improving human and environmental health, and increasing natural capital (i.e. increasing renewable resources, biodiversity, ecosystem services, and natural habitat). To achieve sustainability we must transform our design and construction processes well beyond what many today see as ‘best practice’, which merely aims to reduce adverse impacts relative to conventional development in an ‘end of pipe’ manner. Many of what are currently regarded as ‘ecological’ design goals, concepts, methods and tools are not adequately geared toward the systems design thinking and creativity required to achieve this challenge. An entirely new form of design for development is required, of which a Whole System Approach to Sustainable Design, as outlined in these Units provides many of the keys. ‘To use an analogy; in the health care fields we have moved (conceptually) from (a) alleviating symptoms, to (b) curing illness, to (c) preventing disease, to (d) improving health. Development control is still largely at the first stage - mitigating impacts (i.e. alleviating symptoms). Restorative Whole System approaches to Sustainable Design instead seeks to reverse impacts, eliminate externalities and increase natural capital by supporting the biophysical functions provided for by nature to restore the health of the soil, air, water, biota and ecosystems.’16 Taking a Whole System Approach to Sustainable Design is not simply about reducing harm but about restoring the environment. It is also about not just ensuring that future generations can meet their needs. A Whole System Approach to Sustainable Design is about designing systems which create a greater array of choices and options for future generations. One of the leading proponents of Sustainable Design, Bill McDonough tells the following story to illustrate the benefits of a restorative perspective to design. We have featured this case study in full to give a sense of the potential of design for sustainability;17 In 1993, we helped to conceive and create a compostable upholstery fabric, a biological nutrient. We were initially asked by Design Tex to create an aesthetically unique fabric that was also ecologically intelligent, although the client did not quite know at that point what this would (tangibly) mean. The challenge helped to clarify, both for us and for the company we were working with, the difference between superficial responses such as recycling and reduction and the more significant changes required by the Next Industrial Revolution (and Whole System Design). For example, when the company first sought to meet our desire for an environmentally safe fabric, it presented what it thought was a wholesome option: cotton,
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which is natural, combined with PET (Polyethylene Terephthalate) fibres from recycled beverage bottles. Since the proposed hybrid could be described with two important ecobuzzwords, ‘natural’ and ‘recycled,’ it appeared to be environmentally ideal. The materials were readily available, market-tested, durable, and cheap. But when the project team looked carefully at what the manifestations of such a hybrid might be in the long run, we discovered some disturbing facts. When a person sits in an office chair and shifts around, the fabric beneath him or her abrades; tiny particles of it are inhaled or swallowed by the user and other people nearby. PET was not designed to be inhaled. Furthermore, PET would prevent the proposed hybrid from going back into the soil safely, and the cotton would prevent it from re-entering an industrial cycle. The hybrid would still add junk to landfills, and it might also be dangerous. The team decided to design a fabric so safe that one could literally eat it. The European textile mill chosen to produce the fabric was quite ‘clean’ environmentally, and yet it had an interesting problem: although the mill's director had been diligent about reducing levels of dangerous emissions, government regulators had recently defined the trimmings of his fabric as hazardous waste. We sought a different end for our trimmings: mulch for the local garden club. When removed from the frame after the chair's useful life and tossed onto the ground to mingle with sun, water, and hungry micro-organisms, both the fabric and its trimmings would decompose naturally. The team decided on a mixture of safe, pesticidefree plant and animal fibres for the fabric (ramie and wool) and began working on perhaps the most difficult aspect: the finishes, dyes, and other processing chemicals. If the fabric was to go back into the soil safely, it had to be free of mutagens, carcinogens, heavy metals, endocrine disrupters, persistent toxic substances, and bio-accumulative substances. Sixty chemical companies were approached about joining the project, and all declined, uncomfortable with the idea of exposing their chemistry to the kind of scrutiny necessary. Finally one European company, Ciba-Geigy, agreed to join. With that company's help the project team considered more than 8,000 chemicals used in the textile industry and eliminated 7,962. The fabric - in fact, an entire line of fabrics - was created using only thirtyeight chemicals. The resulting fabric has garnered gold medals and design awards and has proved to be tremendously successful in the marketplace. The non-toxic fabric, Climatex®Lifecycle™ is so safe that the fabric's trimmings can indeed be used as mulch by local garden clubs. The director of the mill told a surprising story after the fabrics were in production. When regulators came by to test the effluent, they thought their instruments were broken. After testing the influent as well, they realised that the equipment was fine - the water coming out of the factory was as clean as the water going in. The manufacturing process itself was filtering the water. The new design not only bypassed the traditional three-R responses to environmental problems but also eliminated the need for regulation.

Benefits to the Business of a Whole System Approach to Sustainable Design
Product Improvements and Increased Competitive Advantage A Whole System Approach to Sustainable Design can help designers to help businesses develop new business opportunities through developing ‘greener’ products. Such an approach prompts the designer to re-examine existing systems to design totally new ways to meet people’s needs, design completely new products, or simply re-design and significantly improve old products. These new product improvements can create new business opportunities, markets and new competitive advantages for a company. This is being understood by major companies. For instance in May 2005, General Electric, one of the world’s biggest companies with revenues of US $152 billion in 2004, announced “Ecomagination,” a major new business driver expected to double revenues from greener products to US$20 billion by 2010. This initiative will see GE double its research and development in eco-friendly technologies to US$1.5 billion by 2010, and improve energy efficiency by 30% by 2012. In May 2006, the company reported revenues of US$10.1 billion from its energy efficient and environmentally advanced products and services, up from US$6.2 billion in 2004, with orders nearly doubling to US$17 billion. Examples of how a Whole System Approach can lead to big advances are now very common.

- Whole System Design improvements mean that refrigerators today use significantly less
energy than those built in the early 1980s. In Australia the average refrigerator being purchased is 50% more efficient than the ones bought in the early 1980s. But a Whole System Approach to Sustainable Design motivates the designer to see if this could still be improved. As Unit 5 will show the latest innovations in materials science from Europe show that there is now better insulating materials available that will allow the next generation of refrigerators to be still more energy efficient.

- A Whole System Approach to Sustainable Design involves setting a high stretch goal of
seeking to design a system as sustainably and cost effectively as possible. The laptop computer is a classic case study because it shows what happens when you give engineers a stretch goal. In this case the stretch goal was that computer companies needed laptops to be 80% more efficient than desktop computers so that the computer could run off a battery. With this stretch goal the engineers delivered a solution through a Whole System Design.

- The built environment is another major area where many are now taking a Whole System
Approach to Sustainable Design. In Melbourne, Australia, the 60L Green Building demonstrated what is possible through retrofitting old buildings with a Whole System Design approach. This commercial building now uses over 65% less energy and over 90% less water than a conventional commercial building. It features many innovations, using the latest in stylish office amenities completely made from recycled materials.

- Whole System Approaches to Design also can help metal processing and industrial processes.
Ausmelt is was a totally new smelting process for base metals that increases the capacity of metal producers to repeatedly recycle the planet’s finite mineral resources developed in Australia. The technology has since been further developed to reprocess toxic wastes such as the cyanide and fluorine-contaminated pot-lining from aluminium smelters. The Sirosmelt, Ausmelt, Isasmelt technologies have become the system of choice as smelting companies slowly modernize internationally.
Prepared by The Natural Edge Project 2007 Page 11 of 24

Table 1.3: Case Studies of a Whole System Approach to Sustainable Design (As outlined in Units 6-10) Case Study Summary A Whole System Approach to the redesign of a single-pipe, single-pump system focussed on a) reconfiguring the layout for lower head loss and b) consider the effect of many combinations of pipe diameter and pump power on life cycle cost. The WSD system uses 88% less power and has a 79% lower 50-year life cycle cost than the conventional system. A Whole System Approach to the redesign of a passenger vehicle focussed on reducing mass by 52% and reducing drag by 55%, which then reduced rolling resistance by 65% and made a fuel cell propulsion system cost effective. The WSD vehicle is also almost fully recyclable, generates zero operative emissions and has a 95% better fuel-mass-consumption per kilometre than the equivalent conventional vehicle. A Whole System Approach to the redesign of a computer server focussed on using the right-sized, energy efficient components, which then reduced the heat generated. The WSD server has 60% less mass and uses 84% less power than the equivalent server, which would reduce cooling load in a data centre by 63% A Whole System Approach to the redesign of a simple house focussed on a) optimising the building orientation, b) optimising glasing and shading and c) using more enregy efficient electrical appliaces and lamps. While the WSD house has a $3000 greater capital cost than the conventional house, it has a 29% lower cooling load will reduce energy costs by $15,000 over 30 years. A Whole System Approach to the redesign of a domestic onsite water system focussed on a) using water efficiency appliances in the house and b) optimising the onsite wastewater treatment subsystem, which then reduced the capacity and cost of the subsurface drip irrigation subsystem, and reduced the operating and maintenance costs. The WSD system uses 57% less water and has a 29% lower 20-year life cycle cost than the conventional system.

Improving Competitive Advantage through Reduced Costs A Whole System Approach to Sustainable Design helps companies move away from end of pipe approaches of pollution control, towards designing out waste in the first place and improving eco-efficiency and resource productivity. Companies are starting to realise that resource inefficiencies in their businesses are often indicators of a much greater waste occurring in areas from product design to overall plant design and operation. Professor Michael Porter, internationally renowned expert in business competitiveness, summarises the key insight that many are still failing to realise, as he and Claus Van Der Linde write;18 Environmental improvement efforts have … focused on pollution control through better identification, processing, and disposal of discharges or waste – costly approaches. In recent years, more advanced companies and regulators have embraced the concept of pollution prevention, sometimes called source reduction, which uses such methods as material substitution and closed-loop processes to limit pollution before it occurs. Although pollution prevention is an important step in the right direction ultimately companies must learn to frame environmental improvement in terms of resource productivity. Today managers and regulators focus on the actual costs of eliminating or treating pollution. They must shift their attention to include the opportunity costs of pollution – wasted resources, wasted effort, and diminished product value to the customer. At the level of resource productivity, environmental improvement and competitiveness come together. This new view of pollution as resource inefficiency evokes the quality revolution of the 1980s and its most powerful lessons. Today many businesspeople have little trouble grasping the idea that innovation can improve quality while actually lowering cost. But as recently as 15 years ago, managers believed there was a fixed trade-off. Improving quality was expensive because it could be achieved only through inspection and rework of the ‘inevitable’ defects that came off the line. What lay behind the old view was the assumption that both product design and production processes were fixed. As managers have rethought the quality issue, however, they have abandoned that old mind-set. Viewing defects as a sign of inefficient product and process design – not as an inevitable by-product of manufacturing – was a breakthrough. Companies now strive to build quality into the entire process. The new mind-set unleashed the power of innovation to relax or eliminate what companies had previously accepted as fixed trade-offs.

Improved Productivity A Whole System Approaches to Sustainable Design can encourage new approaches and innovations that can improve businesses’ resource productivity significantly. If industry simply tinkers with the way modes of production currently meet consumer demand then the productivity gains will be small, but larger resource productivity gains, achieved wisely through design-for-environment and whole-system re-design strategies, can help businesses achieve higher productivity gains than usual. Large resource productivity gains can lead to significant total productivity improvements that, to date, have been largely ignored by business due to relatively low energy and water prices and the relatively low costs of landfill. A Whole Systems approach to Sustainable Design is a strategy for achieving large resource productivity gains as
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cost effectively as possible. Numerous business case studies now have been reported to prove this in internationally bestselling books such as Factor 4: Doubling Wealth, Halving Resource Use and Natural Capitalism. Amory Lovins, a co-author of these books, has been working in recent years with Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailing company. In October 2005, Wal-Mart, announced a $500 million climate change commitment including initiatives to: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20% in seven years. Increase truck fleet fuel efficiency by 25% in three years and double it in ten through a whole system re-design of its trucking fleets to reduce for instance their air-resistance. With the savings from greater energy efficiency Wal Mart has also committed to operating on 100% renewable energy.

Figure 1.1 Whole System Approach to the Design of Trucks Source: Rocky Mountain Institute (2007)19 The Australian Department of Industry Tourism and Resources (DITR) energy efficiency program has shown that a Whole System Approach provides a way to achieve large resource efficiency savings while reducing costs to business (see Table 1.4). One area where design can often help business save money is by looking at the equipment - is it optimised for the job it was intended to do? For instance most air conditioners are currently optimised for the most extreme of weather conditions, rather than being optimised for the conditions in a building at which they are required to run most of the time. Another question not often asked is, are there more systems running than needed? When undertaking a whole system analysis of an industrial plant, office building, or factory it is often found that energy consumption far exceeds the levels expected on the basis of computer simulation. In most systems, from household appliances to office buildings to industrial sites, the nature of energy use can be characterised as shown in Figure 1.2.

In practice, most plant and equipment has surprisingly high fixed energy overheads because engineers have not checked that what is switched on is only what absolutely needs to be running. In an ideal process, no energy is used when the system is not doing anything useful. The gradient of the graph should reflect the ideal amount of energy used to run the process. The gradient of the typical process is steeper than the ideal graph, reflecting the inefficiencies within the process. Systems ranging from large industrial plants to retail stores to homes show similar characteristics. Why is this happening? It is occurring because whether it is an industrial plant or a home there is very limited measurement and monitoring of energy and resource use at the process level. Further, rarely are there properly specified benchmarks against which performance can be evaluated. So often plant operators do not know what is possible. An effective strategy looks at both the fixed energy overheads and the system’s marginal efficiency. Often only one or the other is addressed. The message here is that energy consuming systems are not simple. Ideally, they should be modelled under a range of realistic operating conditions, so that appropriate priorities for savings measures can be set and reasonable estimates of energy savings from each measure can be made.

Table 1.4: Sample of Big Energy Projects scheme under the Energy Efficiency Best Practice Government Program Site Barrett Burston Malting (Geelong, Victoria and across sites nationally) Core Business Malt Manufacture Elements of the program BEP (new plant with focus on heating/cooling). BPPP modules: - refrigeration compressed air - BEP outcomes workshop

Savings across six sites within the year to December 2001 yielded an improved energy consumption of around 50,000Gj of combined gas and electricity savings, while maintaining product quality. Total operational costs bettered the budget by 12%, with savings in excess of 20% in one malt house. The improved trend is being continued to this day in all six plants. Significant savings have been identified for the Geelong site and future Greenfield sites with the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 43%. Amcor Packaging Thomastown, Victoria Bottle Closure Manufacturing BPPP modules: - - energy management team

In the first phase, a ‘changeover’ project was identified by the team, resulting in a productivity increase with a sales value of AU$330,000 annually. Amcor Packaging, Dandenong, Victoria Aluminium Can Manufacturing BPPP modules: - energy management

Efficiency of one gas fired oven has been improved by 25%, with a saving of 4Gj per hour as well as reliability and productivity benefits. A power factor correction project has been identified that will yield savings of AU$17,000 per year. A compressed air optimisation project has identified savings of AU$46,000 per year. Bakers Delight, Mascot, Sydney Bakery BEP: designed a Showcase Bakery

The project achieved 32% savings in annual energy costs and 48% reduction in greenhouse emissions per year compared to a standard Bakers Delight bakery. The project also led to improvements in waste minimization, water conservation and purchasing energy from renewable sources. Source: Summary of various documents from the Australian Government’s Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources, www.industry.gov.au. Also referenced in Hargroves & Smith (2005), p154

Improved Decision Making and Problem Solving Initiatives using a Whole System Approach encourage an organisation to reconsider outdated processes and assumptions, and can create simultaneous improvements in resource productivity and economic performance. A new approach for engineers to encourage them to reexamine the assumptions underlying long established manufacturing processes may lead firms to discover opportunities for simultaneously reducing costs and pollutant emissions. Many participants in the US voluntary challenge programs, such as 33/50 and Green Lights, reported
Prepared by The Natural Edge Project 2007 Page 16 of 24

that the programs forced them to re-examine their decision-making methods. In Australia the Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources (DITR) Energy Efficiency Best Practice Program found that time and again comp0061nies can benefit from re-examining assumptions. The sorts of things engineers21 have found, using a whole system analysis of existing systems, included:

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Large boiler feed water tanks that were uninsulated but sitting in the open air at 75oC. Why? Staff had noted that when the plant wasn’t running, the temperature of the water in these tanks fell quite slowly: it was therefore inferred that heat loss was not great. In reality this outcome was due to the very high thermal capacity of a large volume of water, and actual heat losses were hundreds of watts per square metre of surface area, and even more when it was windy or raining. Many plants that operated for 50-80 hours per week had large boiler systems or refrigeration systems that could not be shut down and restarted reliably or quickly, so there was massive standby energy waste because they ran continuously (up to 168 hours/week). Some facilities, for example wineries, had large amounts of high capital cost equipment that was fully utilised for very short periods of time: load management strategies offer both capital and energy savings. Thermal bridging and air leakage were often major contributors to energy losses and can be easily overcome. For example, a bakery oven evaluated based on actual standby energy consumption had an effective average thermal resistance of R0.22. This compares with a typical insulation value in a house ceiling of R3. The unnecessary 8 kW of heat loss from this oven was a major contributor to the discomfort of staff in the kitchen. In turn, the uncomfortable working conditions are a key factor affecting the difficulty of attracting staff to this industry. The business is actually paying for the energy that undermines its ability to employ good people.

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Participants of the Australian Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources Energy Efficiency programs found that taking a Whole System Approach helped their consultant engineers find new ways to address and solve long-standing problems. The specialists participating in the workshop were able to consider the malting process from a completely fresh angle, generating a host of valuable creative ideas for future plant designs and many solutions for retrofitting existing plants… I heard more innovative ideas about how we can improve our process during this workshop than I’ve heard in the last 30 years. Grant Powell, Vice President of Production, Barrett Burston Maltings We found the DITR’s Energy Efficinecy Best Practice Program to be particularly valuable as a means to incorporate a wide range of external points of view. The specialists involved were able to look at our refrigeration issues without the constraints of having worked in the brewing industry previously. Phil Browne, Manager Infrastructure and Utilities Capability, CUB

Benefits to Governments
Assist the Decoupling of Economic Growth from Environmental Pressures As Yukiko Fukasaku22 wrote for the OECD in 1999, It used to be taken for granted that economic growth entailed parallel growth in resource consumption, and to a certain extent, environmental degradation. However, the experience of the last decades indicates that economic growth and resource consumption and environmental degradation can be decoupled to a considerable extent. The path towards sustainable development entails accelerating this decoupling process23… i.e. transforming what we produce and how we produce it. The scientific results of the 2005 United Nations Millennium Ecosystem Assessment show that it is vital that all nations achieve rapid decoupling of economic growth from environmental pressures.24 Many nations, such as the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK are achieving significant decoupling of economic growth from several environmental pressures showing that it is possible through eco-efficiencies and whole system design to achieve decoupling.25

Fukasaku, Y. (1999) ‘Stimulating Environmental Innovation’, The STI Review, No. 25, Issue 2, Special Issue on Sustainable Development, OECD, Paris. 23 According to the OECD, The term decoupling ‘has often been used to refer to breaking the link between the growth in environmental pressure associated with creating economic goods and services. In particular it refers to the relative growth rates of a pressure on the environment and of the economically relevant variable to which it is causally linked. Decoupling occurs when growth rate of the environmentally relevant variable is less than that of its economic variable (eg: GDP) over a period of time..’ 24 UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, available from http://www.maweb.org/en/index.aspx.
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OECD (1998) Eco-efficiency, OECD, Paris, p 71.

NEAA: Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (2004) Environmental Balance 2004 – Summary. Report downloadable from http://www.mnp.nl/en/publications/2004/Environmental_Balance_2004.html.

In 2001 the Australian Government committed to the goal of decoupling economic growth from environmental pressures through the then Federal Environment Minister Robert Hill’s27 active participation in, and support for, the 2001 – 2011 OECD Environmental Strategy which included ‘Achieving Decoupling of Economic Growth from Environmental Pressure’ as the second of five key objectives.

Profitable Reductions in Greenhouse Gas Emissions The World’s largest economic powers – countries and companies – now acknowledge that greenhouse gas emissions will need to be drastically reduced over the next 30-50 years to avert catastrophic environmental damage leading to significant social and economic damages as indicated by the 2007 IPCC 4th Assessment. The President of the United States, George W Bush, stated in 2005 that I recognise that the surface of the Earth is warmer and that an increase in greenhouse gases caused by humans is contributing to the problem. George W Bush (2005) Washington Post At the 2005 World Economic Forum, CEOs from the world’s biggest companies agree: ‘The greatest challenge facing the world in the 21st Century – and the issue where business could most effectively adopt a leadership role – is climate change’.28 Australia’s Chief Scientist Robin Batterham suggests an 80% reduction is required in Australia’s CO2 emissions by the end of the 21st Century.

While Australia is well on track to achieving its Kyoto target,29 it is widely acknowledged that this is but a small step in a long journey of greenhouse gas reduction for our country. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggest that stabilising greenhouse gas concentrations at double the pre-industrial levels will require deep cuts in annual global emissions by 60% or more.30 The Sydney Morning Herald reported in 2004 that Australia’s Chief Scientist Robin Batterham suggests that an 80% reduction is required in Australia’s CO2 emissions by the end of the 21st Century.31 A Whole System Approach to Sustainable Design illustrated will be a crucial tool to enable the achievement of such large greenhouse gas reductions. As shown above already there are numerous whole system design innovations– pipe and pump systems, motor systems, hybrid cars, laptop computers, green buildings – which achieve at least 50 per cent energy efficiency savings. Numerous further case studies of a Whole System Approach to Sustainable Design are outlined in Units 4-5 showing that 30-80 per cent energy efficiency savings can be achieved thus making low carbon energy supply options economically viable. The technical whole system design worked examples in Units 6-9 – Computer Data Centres, HyperCars, Pipes and Pumps, Insulation and Buildings are all examples of how whole system design can reduce energy usage and greenhouse gas emissions.

Reducing Oil Dependency Reducing our use and dependence on fossil fuels such as oil is not only necessary for reasons associated with global warming, there is also an economic imperative. Whenever oil prices have risen significantly in the past this has hurt economies in two ways. Firstly rising oil prices are inflationary and they reduce consumer spending on other parts of the economy. US President George Bush committed the USA to reducing oil dependency by 75% by 2025. George Bush outlined this in his 2006 State of the Union Address stating, And here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world. The best way to break this addiction is through technology. Since 2001, we have spent nearly $10 billion to develop cleaner, cheaper, and more reliable alternative energy sources -- and we are on the threshold of incredible advances.….this and other new technologies will help us reach another great goal: to replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025. By applying the talent and technology of America, this country can dramatically improve our environment, move beyond a petroleum-based economy, and make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past.32 George W. Bush, President of the United States of America, 2006

Modern economies’ transportation needs are remarkably dependant on oil. Without new discoveries Australia’s domestic oil reserves are forecast by the Australian Petroleum Association to run out by 2030. Overall oil production having now peaked in over 60 countries (e.g. in the USA rate of oil production peaked in 1972). Increasingly, experts believe that rate of oil production will peak anytime between 2010-2030 as shown in Figure 1.5 below. If this is true, then in the near future, with increasing demand for it, the global economy will experience increasing oil prices.

Two US government reports that made serious warnings on this issue and recommended early action. The US Department of Energy’s Office of Naval Petroleum and Oil Shale reserves released a report in 2004 which outlined that, with oil, “A serious supply demand discontinuity could lead to world wide economic crisis.” In this report they argue for an emergency plan to keep US oil supply supplies strong and ensure that the US Naval fleet can stay afloat. 34 A 2005 report commissioned by the US Department of Energy was released by Robert Hirsh 35 of the Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), commissioned by the US Department of Energy. The report is titled "Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation and Risk Management”36. It delivered a blunt message. It states that the world has, at most, 20-25 years before world oil production peaks. It argues that it will take economies over 20 years to adapt to a world of constant high oil prices. Therefore, it argues that humanity does not have a moment to lose. A whole system approach to design of our cities and transport systems will be vital to addressing this problem. Many sustainable transport experts argue that to effectively reduce oil dependency in the transport sector we need to transform our cities from their current automobile dependant design to a more automobile independent city. Therefore achieving sustainable transportation now, with what technology is available, will require governments, business and citizens to work together to reduce their transportation needs through better urban/regional design and a shift to low carbon emitting transportation modes – especially through increased public transportation, rail, cycling and walking. Improvements in fuel efficiency of transportation vehicles (cars, trucks, buses, motorcycles) through whole system design approaches is also seen as a key strategy to reduce oil dependency. In Unit 7, the technical Hypercar worked example the benefits of a Whole System Approach to the Design of cars is explained. Many of the ideas outlined in the Hypercar are already being applied to hybrid cars, trucks, buses and motorbikes. Companies leading in this area are reaping significant financial benefits. At the academy awards last year the car park for Hollywood Stars looked like a showroom for a hybrid car dealership. In the US hybrids sell at US$22,000. This is very affordable for the family and can cut the family fuel bill in half. There is now an 8 month wait for anyone wanting a hybrid in the US such is their popularity. As stated above, in October 2005, the world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart, announced a $500 million climate change commitment including initiatives to: Increase truck fleet fuel efficiency by 25% in three years and double it in ten. In England the first double-decker hybrid bus was launched in 2005 (see Figure 1.6) and already there are numerous hybrid motorbikes on the market (see Figure 1.7).

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Johnson, H.R., Crawford, P.M. and Bunger, J.W. (2004) Strategic Significance of America’s Oil Shale Resource: Volume I – Assessment of Strategic Issues, U.S. Department of Energy. Washington, D.C. Available at http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/reserves/npr/publications/npr_strategic_significancev1.pdf. Accessed 24 September 2007. P10. 35 In late May Robert Hirsch presented the substance of the report at the annual Workshop of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) in Lisbon, Portugal to an audience of about 300: (www.cge.uevora.pt/aspo2005/abscom/Abstract_Lisbon_Hirsch.pdf).
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Conclusion Concern for these issues is not new. As far back as 1919 Svante Arrhenius, Director of the Nobel Institute urged engineers to think of the next generation and embrace sustainable development; Engineers must design more efficient internal combustion engines capable of running on alternative fuels such as alcohol, and new research into battery power should be undertaken… Wind motors and solar engines hold great promise and would reduce the level of CO2 emissions. Forests must be planted… To conserve coal, half a tonne of which is burned in transporting the other half tonne to market… The building of power plants should be in close proximity to the mines… All lighting with petroleum products should be replaced with more efficient electric lamps. Svante Arrhenius (1919) Chemistry in Modern Life Svante Arrhenius called for the amount of waste from industry to be reduced so as to ensure that future generations could also meet their needs. Writing in 1919 Arrhenius argued that the industrial world had given rise to a new kind of international warrior, who Arrhenius called the ‘Conquistador of waste’. Arrhenius wrote eloquently, Like insane wastrels, we spend that which we received in legacy from our fathers. Our descendants surely will sensor us for having squandered their just birthright… Statesman can plead no excuse for letting development go on to the point where mankind will run the danger of the end of natural resources in a few hundred years. A Whole System Approach to Sustainable Design will assist engineers to identify and design out waste in the first place and ensure that they play their part in achieving sustainable development. Hence Whole System Design offers exciting opportunities that engineers can play their part to help companies, Australia and the world to achieve sustainable development in the 21st Century.